I have been trying to commit to this experiment over the last month, my first attempt last only 36 hours… and I thought about TV most of that time… I love watching TV, films, DVDs, hour after hour, series after series, night after night… but it no longer makes my life more full, its just a passive way to entertain my brain instead of getting of with my dissertation and all the other thing could be doing with my time. Tv is a perfectly good way to entertain yourself, beyond just surviving, life is just entertaining your brain… but this body of work is about trying new ways to see if different input and more output will lead to me being more productive in finding/creating happiness and fufillment. Plus I have watched every decent series available on 4OD & iplayer!

Parameters:

DURING TERM TIME

No watching TV- Including iplayer, 4OD, other internet sites and DVD’s

No watching films alone

Only alone watching- art and artist videos and other research material.

Thoughts/Hopes/Ambitions:

With more time freed up and no easy distraction or source of pleasure I will find it more tempting to endeavour with all the books I have. Books I have brought over the last few years with the deep desire and intention of becoming more knowledgeable on those topics. It will also focus my attention on my own output and allow me more time to develop skills… whatever they may be. I am more likely to stumble the internet but this normally leads to interesting thing and new sources of knowledge so that will be good, plus I get bored of this after an hour or so.

Most importantly I hope it will mean that I sleep at night and can get up in the mornings and don’t feel so tired, having not stayed up till 4am watching 5 episodes of some random program.

so here goes… it begins 2hours 24 minutes without TV (but with everything else) and counting…

The inspiration for the title and theme of this work comes from a conversation with artist Martin Creed during a talk/performance he gave at the AUCB early this year. Its was very engaging and funny but also quite annoying because Creed is very illusive with his answers and it was hard to tell whether the persona he enacted in front of us was at all genuine… rubbing his head a lot, pacing back and fore in silence and struggling for answers and coming across like he thinks he is a failure… having seen other interviews of his on TV, I think Creed is very clever performer that relies on an audience or interviewer doing a lot of work ascertain worth and meaning from his seemingly straightforward and profound answers which can seem at odds with the work he has made.

Anyway doesn’t really matter what I think of him and his work, it was one answer he gave to why he made art that sparked my work now… it went along the lines of ‘everything I do is an experiment to make my life better’ which is a very logical reason to do things, I think most things people do is for this purpose although this aim is not always at the forfront of peoples thoughts and people aren’t logical.

from www.martincreed.com

For Creed that answer maybe sincere but what he actually make is always pieces of fine art… I like much of his work and simplicity of many of his proccesses of creating but how do you come up with putting blue tack on a wall if that was your aim and most his pieces don’t seem they would change someones life for the better… I guess an artists need to make things is fulfiled by making things which makes life better… and some of the cathartic and methodic nature of his work perhaps allows him to use his personal traits productivly… whatever it is for him… I am not gonna focus on the production of art objects and these experiments don’t have much relation to art… they will merely be my attemps to make life better… prodominatly my life.